Some attitudes around town are just trashy

by marvin read

Published: August 17, 2013;Last modified: August 17, 2013 05:00AM

On a traffic-busy street corner near my home, an advertising company has placed a set of reasonably attractive trash containers. In fact, there are two such installations, across the street from one another, with three wrought-iron containers, each meant to hold recyclable items.

There are several such placements in the city and others throughout the nation.

Each of the installations bears a small space for advertising, not much more area than it would take to say, in equivalence, “Hey, we’re so-and-so company, and we support doing good things for the environment.”

But life doesn’t always work that cleanly. On top of or near each of the containers in my neighborhood , someone inevitably and surreptitiously deposits one or two big bags filled with, who knows what. Garbage? Discarded clothing? A week’s worth of trash?

The areas where the receptacles are located are otherwise well maintained, in grassy areas, one on a church’s property. But the irresponsible treatment by local trashers means someone else has to pick up the junk . . . and cart it way. That’s not what recycling is about. It’s enough to make passersby wonder, “What the hell is wrong with people?”

But then, one can see a multitude of drivers flicking cigarette butts from windows as they drive. We’ve all seen evidence in various locations where a smoker decides to empty a car’s ashtray onto a street or parking space.

Equally insensitive people toss the remnants of their drive-through meals onto park lawns or onto the surface of a parking lots.

While most hikers and campers are almost compulsive about preserving the pristine nature of the area they use, there’s always the oddball, out of step with humanity, who leaves behind some or another reminder that not everyone cares about fellow humans or the environment.

And then there are the dudes who seem to think that it’s a sign of their masculinity when they cough up a wad of whatever it is they carry in their throats and spit it onto a sidewalk or out the car window. P-tooi, world!

Along the lines of grossness combined with insensitivity, there are few of us, of either gender, who have used public restrooms, and not been reminded of the piggishness of those who have gone before.

The apparent message of all the abusers, from trash cans to nature to bathrooms: “Hey, I don’t care about your physical surroundings; I don’t care about anyone else. I’m all about me!”

Not that I’m the sort of person who’d quote from Scripture to make a point, but doesn’t it say in the first chapter of Genesis that God created all the Earth and creatures, then gave humanity dominion over it all?

Environmental and social responsibility, in other words, are mandates as old as the Good Book, and as basic as the need for good human relationships. And most Puebloans do a good job of keeping the town picked up and clean.

Alas, there are too many who seem to proclaim, “P-tooi!”

— Marvin Read, a retired Chieftain editor and a contributor to this Faith section, may be contacted at mread3238@aol.com.